Privacy Policy
Last updated: 15 October 2026
We are committed to protecting your personal data and your right to privacy. This policy explains what data we collect, why we collect it, how we use it, how long we keep it, and what rights you have.
1. Who we are
Big Mouth Competitions Limited is the controller of your personal data. We are registered in England and Wales under company number 16761060, with our registered office at 1st Floor Waterside House, Waterside Drive, Wigan, Lancashire, England, WN3 5AZ.
If you have any question about this policy, or you want to exercise any of your rights, email us at hello@bigmouthcompetitions.com, or write to us at Big Mouth Competitions, PO Box 8171, Wellingborough, NN8 9PL, marking your letter “Data Protection”. Our data protection lead deals with these requests.
This policy should be read together with our Terms and Conditions, our Acceptable Use Policy and our Cookie Policy.
2. Who this policy is for
Our website and our competitions are for adults aged 18 or over who live in the United Kingdom. We do not knowingly collect personal data about anyone under 18. If we discover that we hold data about someone under 18, we delete it and close the account. If you believe a child has given us their details, tell us at hello@bigmouthcompetitions.com and we will remove them.
3. What we collect
Information you give us
- Your name, email address, postal address, telephone number and date of birth, when you create an account or enter by post.
- Your account username and password. Passwords are stored in a hashed form and we cannot read them.
- The entries you make.
- Your bank account details, if you win a cash prize and we need to pay you.
- Proof of identity, age or address, if we need to verify your entitlement to a prize.
- Anything you tell us in an email, a support message, a review or a complaint.
- Your marketing preferences, and any spending limit or self-exclusion you set.
Information we generate or record when you use the site
- Records of your entries, purchases, refunds, site credit and account balance.
- Your entry numbers and draw results.
- Server records of your visits, including your IP address, the pages requested, the date and time, and your browser and device type.
- Records of logins, failed logins and other security events.
- Information about how you use the site, such as the pages you visit, how you arrived at the site, and the type of device and browser you use, collected through analytics cookies. You can turn these off at any time, as explained in our Cookie Policy.
Information we get from others
- Confirmation that your payment succeeded or failed, and the outcome of any fraud or address check, from our payment provider DNA Payments.
We do not buy personal data from data brokers or list sellers, and we do not track you across other websites.
Card details. We never see or store your full card number. Payment is handled directly by DNA Payments, who are authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority and are responsible for the security of your card data.
4. Special category data
We do not ask for and do not want data about your health, race, ethnicity, religion, political opinions, sex life, sexual orientation, trade union membership, genetics or biometrics.
One exception is worth explaining. If you tell us you are self-excluding because you are worried about your spending, that information can reveal something about your health. We treat it with extra care: it is accessible only to the small number of staff who need it in order to keep your self-exclusion in place, it is never used for marketing, and it is never shared with anyone outside the business except where we are required by law.
5. Why we use your data, and our legal basis
| What we use it for | Data used | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Creating and running your account | Name, contact details, date of birth, login data | Performance of our contract with you |
| Taking payment and issuing refunds or site credit | Transaction data, payment confirmation | Performance of our contract with you |
| Entering you into competitions, running draws, allocating entry numbers | Identity, contact and entry data | Performance of our contract with you |
| Contacting you about your entries and telling you if you have won | Contact data | Performance of our contract with you |
| Verifying your age, identity and eligibility | Identity data, proof documents | Performance of our contract with you, and our legal obligations |
| Delivering your prize, including paying a cash prize | Contact data, bank details | Performance of our contract with you, and our legal obligations on anti-money-laundering |
| Publishing the entry list for each competition | Your name and entry number | Our legitimate interest, and the interest of all our entrants, in being able to see the full set of entries a draw was run across |
| Publishing the surname and county of major prize winners | Winner’s surname and county | Our legitimate interest in showing that our competitions are run fairly, and in meeting the Advertising Standards Authority’s requirements |
| Preventing fraud, multi-accounting, bots and manipulation of draws | Server records, transaction data, account data | Our legitimate interest in protecting our competitions and our other entrants |
| Understanding how the site is used so that we can improve it | Pages viewed, how you arrived at the site, device and browser type, approximate location worked out from your IP address, analytics cookie identifiers | Our legitimate interest in improving our site. You can turn analytics off at any time in our Cookie Policy |
| Keeping the site secure and available | Server records, security logs | Our legitimate interest in protecting our systems |
| Keeping your spending limit or self-exclusion in place | Account data, limit and exclusion records | Our legitimate interest in protecting players from harm |
| Handling your questions, complaints and legal claims | Whatever is relevant to the matter | Our legitimate interest in resolving disputes, and our legal obligations |
| Keeping accounting and tax records | Transaction data | Our legal obligations |
| Sending you marketing emails or messages | Contact data, marketing preferences | Your consent, or our legitimate interest where you have entered a competition and we are telling you about similar competitions |
| Using your photograph or video in publicity | Whatever you provide | Your consent |
Where we rely on a legitimate interest, we have considered whether it is fair to you and whether it overrides your rights. You can object at any time, and we will stop unless we have a compelling reason not to. See section 10.
The published entry list. For each competition we publish a list showing the name and entry number of everyone who entered, so that our entrants can see the full set of entries a draw was run across. If you would rather your name did not appear, you can turn this off in your account settings at any time, or email hello@bigmouthcompetitions.com. Your entry number will still be shown, so the total remains accurate, and your chance of winning is unaffected. We do not publish your address, telephone number, email address or date of birth.
6. Marketing
We only send you marketing emails or messages if you have asked us to, or if you have entered one of our competitions and we are telling you about similar ones. Every message has an unsubscribe link, and you can also turn marketing off in your account settings or by emailing hello@bigmouthcompetitions.com.
Turning off marketing has no effect on your entries, your account or any prize you have won. We keep a note that you have opted out, so that we do not contact you again by mistake.
We do not sell your personal data, and we do not share it with other companies for their own marketing.
7. Who we share your data with
We share your data only where we need to, and only with organisations that are contractually bound to protect it and to use it solely on our instructions. The categories are:
- Our hosting provider, who stores the website and its database.
- Cloudflare, which sits in front of our site to protect it from attacks and to deliver pages more quickly.
- Google, which provides our website analytics through Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager, and acts on our instructions.
- DNA Payments, who process your card payment and carry out fraud and address checks.
- Our email provider, who sends account and marketing emails on our behalf.
- Delivery and logistics partners, where a prize is physically delivered to you.
- Prize suppliers, where a prize is supplied by a third party and they need your details to transfer it to you.
- Our professional advisers, including accountants, auditors, insurers and lawyers, where they need the information to advise us.
- Regulators and authorities, including the Advertising Standards Authority, HM Revenue & Customs, the Information Commissioner’s Office and the police, where we are required to provide information or where we reasonably consider it necessary to prevent or detect crime.
We may also share your data with a buyer, or the buyer’s advisers, if we sell or reorganise the business. Any buyer would have to use your data in line with this policy.
8. Sending data outside the UK
Some of the organisations above, including Cloudflare and Google, are based in the United States or process data there. Where your data leaves the UK we make sure it is protected to a UK standard, by relying on one of the following:
- the country has been recognised by the UK government as providing adequate protection;
- the receiving organisation is certified under the UK extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework; or
- we have a contract in place using the UK International Data Transfer Agreement, or the UK Addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses.
If you want details of the safeguard used for a particular transfer, email hello@bigmouthcompetitions.com and we will tell you.
9. How long we keep your data
| Data | How long we keep it |
|---|---|
| Your account | While your account is open, and for 6 years after you close it |
| Entry, draw, payment and refund records | 6 years from the end of the financial year they relate to |
| Winner records, including prize delivery | 6 years, so that we can show a valid award took place and deal with any later query |
| Proof of identity, age or address | Deleted as soon as we have verified it, and in any event within 12 months |
| Bank details provided for a cash prize | 6 years, as part of our accounting records |
| Marketing preferences and opt-outs | Kept indefinitely, so that we do not contact you again after you have asked us not to |
| Spending limits and self-exclusions | For as long as they are in force, and for 6 years afterwards, so that we can honour them |
| Emails, support messages and complaints | 2 years, or longer where a dispute is unresolved |
| Server and security logs | 12 months |
| Website analytics data | No more than 14 months in Google Analytics, after which it is deleted. Reports we keep are aggregated and do not identify you |
Where we no longer need your data we delete it, or anonymise it so that it can no longer be linked to you.
10. Your rights
Under UK data protection law you have the right to:
- Be told how we use your data, which is what this policy is for.
- Get a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
- Have it corrected if it is wrong or incomplete. You can update most of it yourself in your account.
- Have it deleted, where we no longer have a good reason to keep it. We cannot delete records we are legally required to keep, such as transaction records, and we cannot delete a self-exclusion while it is in force.
- Restrict how we use it, while a question about its accuracy or our use of it is resolved.
- Object to us using it on the basis of a legitimate interest, and to object to direct marketing at any time.
- Receive it in a portable format, or have it sent to another organisation, where we hold it on the basis of your consent or our contract with you and it is processed automatically.
- Withdraw your consent at any time, where consent is the basis we rely on.
To exercise any of these, email hello@bigmouthcompetitions.com. We will respond within one month. If your request is complex we may take up to two further months, and we will tell you if that happens. There is no charge, unless a request is excessive or repetitive.
We may ask you to confirm your identity before we act, so that we do not disclose your data to someone else.
If you close your account or ask us to erase your data while a competition you have entered is still running, we will not be able to contact you if you win. We will tell you this before we act, so that you can decide how to proceed.
11. Automated decisions
Our draws allocate entry numbers and select winners at random. This is not profiling and it does not evaluate anything about you personally.
Our systems flag unusual activity that may indicate fraud, multi-accounting or manipulation of a draw. A flag on its own never leads to a decision. A person always reviews it before we void an entry, withhold a prize or suspend an account, and you will be told why and given a chance to respond, as set out in our Terms and Conditions.
12. Cookies
We use cookies that are strictly necessary to make the site work. They keep you logged in, remember the entries in your basket, carry your session between pages, and protect the site against attacks and fraudulent requests.
We also use analytics cookies, from Google Analytics and from WooCommerce’s record of how you arrived at our site, to understand how the site is used so that we can improve it. The law allows us to use these without asking for your consent, as long as we tell you about them and you can easily turn them off. You can turn them off at any time in our Cookie Policy.
We do not use advertising cookies, and we do not use cookies or similar technologies to build an advertising profile of you or to follow you across other websites. A full list of the cookies we set, what each one does and how long it lasts, is in our Cookie Policy.
You can block or delete cookies through your browser settings, but parts of the site, including logging in and entering a competition, will not work if you do.
13. Keeping your data secure
We use encryption in transit across the whole site, restrict access to personal data to staff who need it, store passwords in hashed form, and keep our software updated. DNA Payments handle card data so that it never reaches our systems.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach occurs that is likely to result in a risk to your rights, we will report it to the Information Commissioner’s Office within 72 hours, and we will tell you directly where the risk to you is high.
14. Other websites
Our site and our social media pages link to websites we do not control, and our competitions are promoted on Facebook, which is operated by Meta under its own terms and privacy policy. Once you leave our site, this policy no longer applies. We suggest you read the privacy policy of any site you visit.
15. Changes to this policy
We keep this policy under review. Where we make a change that materially affects you, we will give you at least 14 days’ notice by email or by a prominent notice on our site. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last updated.
16. How to complain
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, please tell us first at hello@bigmouthcompetitions.com. We aim to acknowledge your complaint within 2 working days and respond within 14 days.
You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK regulator for data protection:
Information Commissioner’s Office Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF Helpline: 0303 123 1113 https://ico.org.uk
We would appreciate the chance to resolve your concern before you approach the ICO, but you are entitled to go to them at any time.